Bigger cages, longer chains!

Toxteth riots, England, 1981. During a lull in the action a leftist militant climbs on to a box and addresses the crowd on the subject of the coming socialist utopia. Her promise that there will be jobs for all is met with derisory laughter from a group of young rioters. As the speaker details other reforms, the group begins a mocking chant, "Bigger cages, longer chains! Bigger cages, longer chains!"

I came across this quote recently, though sadly I don't remember where. It's a striking and bittersweet image, isn't it? Leftist in-fighting never changes, perhaps, and yet how far we have fallen since 1981. The rioters were right, I think, to dismiss a job guarantee as a deeply hollow and conservative vision for socialist utopia... and yet it's hard to imagine anyone on the left calling for something quite so radical as guaranteed employment in the 2020s. At some point in the last 50 years, we lost something. Or perhaps it was taken from us.

In attempting to track down wherever I read it, I came across, in the archived materials it seems to originate from, another quote:

In bourgeois democracies the political roles of Mr. Hard and Mr. Soft are played by the parties of the right and the parties of the left. The worse the right behaves, the more attractive the left appears. This illusion is as dangerous in politics as it Is In the police cell. When things get out of hand, and provoke rebellion, the labour Party will save capitalism by pretending to be Socialist.

And comrade, ain't that the truth.